Read in February, March, and April

I usually do these posts monthly, but this time is different. I missed two months due to various complications of unemployment -- the wrong kind of nervous energy, focus elsewhere, and a massive drop in books actually getting read -- but I'm catching up today. I've missed months in the past, and backfilled, but that just seemed silly this time around.

I do still want to give each book its own post, even if I just write something short, since that's easier to search. (Mostly for me, since I do look to see what I said about something I can't quite remember if I actually read.) So this will be just a list of links, and thus not all that interesting to anyone who is not me.

February

Scott Stratten, QR Codes Kill Kittens (2/10)

Lemony Snicket, "Shouldn't You Be in School?" (2/19)

Brian Walker, The Comics: The Complete Collection (2/24)

Kate Wendleton, Targeting a Great Career (2/24)

This book, however, will not get a full post, because I what I have to say about it is quick and simple. This is the first of a four-book series about job-hunting by the founder of a company called The Five O'Clock Club. My former employer uses TFOC as part of the package when they do layoffs, so I've been immersed in that methodology and system for the last three months. (I read large parts of the other three books, but only worked through the first one cover-to-cover.) TFOC also includes small groups of job-seekers that meet weekly, to listen to speakers on specific topics, meet with a coach, and help each other out. It's not a perfect system -- there are aspects of the books that clearly show the methodology was developed in the 1980s, and has not been fully updated for changed circumstances since -- but it's a strong system, and it produces results for motivated people who apply the lessons strongly to their own search. If any of you find yourself looking for the next thing to do in your lives, I recommend the books and TFOC as excellent, deeply useful resources.

March

Danny Danziger and Mark McCrum, The Whatchamacallit (3/1)

Michael Cho, Shoplifter (3/14)

Jules Feiffer, Kill My Mother (3/16)

Sidney Harris, Einstein Simplified (3/17)

Lise Hull, The Great Castles of Britain and Ireland (3/23)

Maxime Valette, Guillaume Passaglia, & Didier Guedi, F My Life (3/23)

Peter Matthiessen, Far Tortuga (3/25)

Paul Theroux, Dark Star Safari (3/27)

Hayley Campbell, The Art of Neil Gaiman (3/30)

April

Simon Rich, The Last Girlfriend on Earth (4/10)


Elizabeth Bear, Karen Memory (4/16)

John Lanchester, How to Speak Money (4/22)

Anita Brookner, The Debut (4/27)

Todd Hignite, The Art of Jaime Hernandez (4/28)


As May rolls on, I expect to have dedicated reading time again for a reason I'm not going to explain here yet -- so I hope that I'll at least have a longer list at the end of May. And I will say that this post marks the entire length of a particular era in my life.